A Different Path
by clara fox
Summary: Before Hermione can begin as the new Potions Master, she has a bit to learn from the old one. Note that this fic is now rated M, for sudden and gratuitous smut.
1. A Summons

disclaimer: JKR owns these characters. I'm just borrowing them until book 6 comes out.

other disclaimer: don't worry, this isn't really a Ron-centric story. once the exposition's done, it'll be all hermione, all the time.

new disclaimer: obviously, this was written (long) before the Half-Blood Prince was published, so it's rather wildly off-canon after the events of book 5. on the plus side, my story still has Dumbledore... on the minus side, Jo made lots of cool things happen to the characters that I can't fit into the story now I've started it in this direction.

* * *

Chapter 1: A Summons 

(It's All Over Now, Baby Blue)

* * *

_Leave your steppi__ng stones behind, something calls for you.  
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.  
The vagabond who's rapping at your door  
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.  
Strike another match, go start anew.  
- Bob Dylan_

"Hermione!" Ron yelled up at the ceiling. "Stop _pacing_! It's not going to make them come any faster, and it's driving us mad!"

A muffled retort drifted down into the living room of the Burrow, and although Harry and Ron couldn't make out the words, they grinned at each other in amused resignation. Neither of them had expected Hermione Granger to wait calmly for her N.E.W.T. results.

Ginny came clattering down the stairs and sprawled herself on the window seat, looking tired.

"She's really not that bad," Ginny remarked. "Or at least, not nearly as bad as when your O.W.L.s came. Remember that?"

"Remember?" Ron looked affronted. "WE were the ones in the room with her at the time. Shreds of envelope parchment flying everywhere, screams and squeals of excitement that only dogs could hear, and then she practically ATTACKED us to see our results. And of course we didn't get near as many as she did... I still can't believe she passed every subject with an O." Despite the long-suffering tone in his voice, Ron looked rather proud.

"Not every subject," Harry reminded him.

"Oh, well so she _only_ got an E in potions," scoffed Ron. "Still passed, didn't she?"

"Yes, and you didn't fare too badly that day..." Ginny's eyes twinkled.

"Are you raving?" Ron stared blankly at Ginny. "You call failing three subjects and nearly bleeding out the ears from Mum's shouting at me 'not faring too badly'?"

"I don't mean on your tests..."

Ron's ears turned a sudden pink, and he looked away from Harry and Ginny. He had forgotten that it had been that day, nearly two years ago now. That day when, after the excitement of O.W.L. results had died down, he and Hermione had ended up alone in the room. When she had, all of a sudden, seemed almost to wilt, had fallen into his arms and, to his horror, begun to cry. He had at first been too shocked to speak, a lucky thing, since the first thing that came to his mind to say was "don't be stupid... what've you got to cry about?" Instead, Ron stood stiffly in the middle of the room, feeling Hermione's ragged breathing on his chest. Almost before he realized it was happening, he had wrapped his arms around her back and whispered to the top of her head that it would be okay. What precisely would be okay, he still had no idea, but for the first time in months he and Hermione were alone together and not fighting, and this time, Ron wasn't going to be the one to say something stupid and ruin this calm. And finally she had stopped shaking, and lifted her wet face to thank him. Ron had realized, looking at her, that she didn't know why she was crying any more than he did. He had brought one hand up to her face to move a wet tendril of hair off of her cheek. His hand had seemed too large then, even more awkward than usual, and he was struck all at once by how small Hermione was: her curls barely brushed the bottom of his chin; if he put both hands on her face he could probably cover it entirely. And then suddenly both of his hands were on her face, thumbs brushing away lingering tears and fingers cupping her jawbone and tilting her chin upwards. And he had kissed her, hesitantly, and softly, and with far more paralyzing terror than he ever admitted later. And she had kissed him back, small hands finding their way along his shoulders to interlace at the back of his neck, lips moving ever more fiercely until the rest of the room faded completely from Ron's mind.

"Ron?"

Harry was looking at him, his half-amused, half-embarassed expression proof that he could guess where Ron's mind had been. The sound of pacing footsteps upstairs had been replaced by a soft tapping and a loud BANG, and then two more tappings from the window behind Ginny. Their N.E.W.T. results had arrived. Ron and Harry looked at each other, nodded, and went to open the window. Harry quickly scanned the parchment addressed to him, looking up to grin once he had read it through.

"Good enough to do Auror training!" Harry beamed. "I thought for sure I'd failed transfiguration when my meercat still had a tartan pattern, but I guess I did well enough on the written to make up for that. How'd you make out?"

"About as expected," Ron replied, passing his parchment to Harry. "It's enough to work in the ministry if I still want, though (knock wood) I'd still rather play Quidditch."

"When are the tryouts?" asked Ginny from the window. "And oh, congratulations you both." She grinned at Harry and stretched out her leg to give Ron a gentle kick. "Aren't you going to go see how your woman did?"

Ron grabbed at his sister's foot in what might have been an attempt to dangle her upside-down by the ankle, but Ginny had already lept up and darted back a few steps, dancing from foot to foot like a boxer.

"Harry, catch her for me while I go find out how the human answer key did on her tests," Ron shouted over his shoulder, and he set off up the stairs two at a time. At the top he paused for a moment, trying to listen for a clue as to Hermione's results. If she were crying... well, lately he hadn't been as good at comforting her as he once was. But he really didn't think it was his fault that his thoughts tended to drift toward Quidditch strategy while Hermione cried into his shoulder. It wasn't that the war hadn't hit him hard—he was just as cut up as Hermione about all the death they had seen, all of their friends whose lives had been cut short. But he was trying to plan for the future, and that was hard to do when he knew that his most likely task in any immediate future would be to change out of tearstained robes and into dry ones.

But he didn't hear crying now. He didn't hear squealing either, though. In fact, the second floor of the Burrow was almost eerily silent. Ron knocked softly on the door to Hermione's room, and when he got no answer he opened it slowly.

Hermione was sitting on a desk in front of the window, a parchment in her hand and an irritated barn owl fluttering near her head, trying to wrest her attention from her reading. Ron crossed the room and opened the window for the owl, wincing as it banged shut after he let it go. At the sound, Hermione looked up from her letter. Her face was neither distraught nor elated; instead, she looked strangely blank.

"Hermione? Did you... did you get any N.E.W.T.s?" Ron asked, tentatively. He had never really had to deal with a _calm_ Hermione in situations like these.

"I'm requested to meet with Professor Dumbledore," Hermione explained.

"You're what?"

"My 'presence is requested at the soonest possible convenience in the office of the Hogwarts Headmaster.' It doesn't say anything about my results." Hermione's eyes were shining. "Does this... this must mean I failed. I'm the first person to fail _every_ _single_ N.E.W.T!"

Ron saw the panic rising in her eyes, and pulled her toward him. "Hermione, don't be daft! You are the smartest witch Hogwarts had seen in years. Dumbledore probably just wants to tell you in person that you scored the highest ever."

But to his surprise, Hermione looked even more terrified at this. "Oh! Ron, maybe they think I cheated - what if my scores were TOO high, and they think I COULDN'T have done that well without some sort of help... but I didn't cheat, Ron, you know I didn't!"

A flustered Hermione: well, Ron knew how to handle this. Holding her shoulders at arms' length, he looked her in the eyes and smiled. "Hermione. You. Are. Brilliant. More than brilliant—genius."

Hermione smiled weakly.

"You know Dumbledore wouldn't accuse you of cheating. And you know full well that you didn't fail. So just go, go see what he wants."

She took a deep breath and nodded, looking down at the paper again. "Okay. It says that by signing on the line, I'll authorise the letter as a portkey. Ooooh..."

"Ooooh, what?"

"Well, it's just a really good spell... making conditional portkeys is _really_ complicated." Her eyes were shining again, but this time it wasn't with tears. Ron laughed. That was more like the Hermione he knew. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and leaned forward to give her a short kiss.

"Good luck. Not that you'll need it."

Hermione smiled, picked up a quill from the desktop, and held it above the paper. "Here I go," she whispered, and as she completed the R in 'Granger,' her fingers seemed to lock onto the parchment, and she felt the familiar tug from somewhere behind her navel.

As her feet hit the floor and the world stopped spinning, Hermione looked around her, gave a small squeak, and dropped both quill and parchment.

* * *

(A/N: there's chapter 1. As maybe you can predict, it'll be getting more exciting now that this chapter's out of the way. I have a pretty good idea of where this is going, but still I'd love any suggestions and feedback. -clara) 


	2. An Offer

disclaimer: JKR owns these characters. I'm borrowing their likenesses as close as i can get them as of the end of book 5.

* * *

Chapter 2: An Offer 

(You're A Big Girl Now)

* * *

_Our conversation was short and sweet  
It nearly swept me off-a my feet...   
You made it there somehow  
You're a big girl now._

_- Bob Dylan _

"Welcome, Hermione," said Dumbledore pleasantly from behind his desk. Hermione hurriedly straightened up from retrieving her letter and quill from the floor of the Headmaster's office, and attempted to formulate a response.

"Th- thank you, Sir..." she trailed off, wondering whether or not she should address the other occupants of the room as well. On either side of Dumbledore, in chinz armchairs of varying states of lopsidedness, sat nearly a dozen of her former teachers, each of them gazing at her intently.

Seeming to recognize her unease, Minerva McGonagall gave Hermione a brief smile, and said bracingly, "No need to be worried, Miss Granger. Have a seat."

Hermione looked behind her to see a small pouf that looked like it might have been summoned from Professor Trelawney's old classroom. As she balanced herself on the edge of the pouf, Hermione pushed back one of the surges of guilt that had become so frequent over the last few years. Even now, she couldn't keep herself from inwardly snorting at the thought of how seriously that old fraud had taken herself. _Don't be so critical,_ admonished a voice in Hermione's head. _That old fraud was one of the first victims in Voldemort's attempts to regain his old power._ But it was in her nature to judge, to find fault, though this same nature that had driven her to academic success had also wrought havoc on her conscience when those people she had mentally labeled (silly, arrogant, stupid—such childish name calling) had fallen, one by one, in the war.

All of this went through Hermione's mind in a second, like it did at some point almost every day. With some effort, she switched her mind back to the present.

"Hermione." Dumbledore was speaking again, his eyes twinkling through his half-moon spectacles. "I suspect that you are wondering why I have brought you here in this... unusual fashion."

Hermione nodded slightly, and again her thoughts began to race towards horrible possibilities.

"I would first of all like to assure you that you did indeed pass all of your N.E.W.T.s," Dumbledore continued, pleasantly. Hermione almost laughed aloud in relief, and as she suppressed her elation with a sigh, she noticed for the first time the looks on the faces of her audience. McGonagall had her lips pressed as tightly together as ever, but her gaze was far from stern. Professors Sprout and Vector were beaming, and Professor Flitwick looked as though he had just been on the receiving end of a cheering charm. Madame Pince looked strangely vindicated, and the pearly Professor Binns seemed more aware of his surroundings than Hermione had ever seen him. Snape wore his usual scowl, though at the moment it looked rather less surly than usual.

"I, and of course all of your professors, have long since recognized your aptitude for scholarly endeavours," continued Dumbledore. "And so when the administrators of the N.E.W.T.s brought your scores to me with the suggestion that there must be some, ah... error, I was able to assure them that the results were in fact correct. I would like to congratulate you, Hermione, on receiving the top mark on every N.E.W.T. that you sat for..."

He was interrupted by applause from Professor Flitwick—maybe he _had_ gotten in the way of a cheering charm, thought Hermione—that was quickly taken up by each of the other teachers. Professor McGonagall had given up on holding back the tears of pride that had been welling in her eyes, and Madame Hooch exclaimed a hearty "bravo!" Even Professor Snape joined in, clapping slowly but not as grudgingly as Hermione would have expected. She was struck again by a thought that had occured to her on occasion before: that the best thanks a teacher could receive was to see her students excel. Certainly, Hermione had rarely had this feeling when helping Ron and Harry study, but then again those sessions had been much less "teaching" and much more "correcting mistakes" and "looking the other way while the boys copied lists of the common mistakes in switching spells or the common potion ingredient substitutes."

Dumbledore smiled as he waited for the clapping to die down. Hermione's face was by now very hot, and she wondered if her ears would go as red as Ron's did. She very much doubted it.

"As remarkable as that achievement is, Hermione, there is more." Hermione looked at the Headmaster. What more could there be than getting the best marks of anyone in her year?

"You have earned a perfect score on one of your exams—a feat that has not been accomplished, on this particular exam, in twenty years."

"Which exam?" asked Hermione eagerly.

"Potions. No, Hermione, I did not mis-speak," added Dumbledore, as Hermione started and looked up at him disbelievingly.

Potions? But that had been her worst O.W.L. score—Snape had hardly agreed to let her into his advanced potions class without having earned the Outstanding O.W.L. In the end it had taken a fierce _conversation _with McGonagall to convince him to continue teaching Hermione despite her "constant blundering" and "excessive dependence on book-learning and rote memorization." Just the memory of that meeting made Hermione furious. He had known that she was one of his best potions students, and that one forgotten ingredient during the O.W.L. practical did not make her a "blunderer." But still Snape had forced her to fight for a place in his advanced class. He had made her beg and he had enjoyed it. It had been at that point that Hermione had stopped forcing herself to be fair to him, given up reminding Ron and Harry that 'Dumbledore trusts Snape,' lost the shreds of respect she had always quietly held for his attention to organisation and exactitude. It was funny, Hermione suddenly realized, that her hatred of Snape was what got her this perfect Potions score. If she hadn't worked so hard to prove him wrong, to spite him into admitting that she was not only competent, but _good,_ she would have spent more of her studying time on Transfiguration or Ancient Runes.

_Take that then, Snape,_ thought Hermione fiercely. As her defiant eyes met his she felt a flash of terror as she remembered that he almost certainly knew what she was thinking, if not from ligilimency, then from the triumphant glare she realised she was fixing on him. She turned her head back towards Dumbledore, but not before noticing a very slight but unmistakable expression of amusement in Snape's dark eyes.

_That bastard. My one moment of triumph over him and he's taking it away. _It was by no means the first time that Hermione had contemplated a well-placed kick to the middle of Snape's robes. This time she took a second to wonder whether a quick jab from her knee or one with the toe of her boot would be more painful.

Dumbledore brought her once again back out of her thoughts. "As overwhelming as all this might be to you, I do have one last point of business to discuss with you before sending you back home to share your news with family and friends. I expect you have been wondering why I brought you here during a full staff meeting just to tell you your test results."

"Oh - well yes, a - a bit." Hermione hadn't actually thought about this much; between the worry and relief of the last several minutes she had only thought about the presence of her teachers long enough to appreciate the familiarity of their faces and to miss those who were missing: Trelawney, Firenze, and most of all, Hagrid.

"As you know, I am once again in the position of trying to fill the job of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

This was unexpected. Hermione, for a brief second, imagined that Dumbledore was about to offer this job to her, and she opened her mouth to protest that if anyone so young should teach that subject, it should be Harry. But as quickly as this thought had come, another, more convincing one followed. _Don't be stupid, Hermione. Stop with the snap judgements. Of course he's not offering you a job. Listen to the whole story_

"As he has in the past, Professor Snape has offered to assume teaching duties in Defense Against the Dark Arts. And I am pleased to be able, this time, to inform him," Dumbledore turned to look at Snape, and Hermione realized that he was waiting as eagerly as she was to hear what would come next, "that I would very much like him to do so." Snape's black eyes glittered in long-awaited triumph, and Hermione again felt a surge of anger at the happiness of her former professor.

"On one condition." added Dumbledore.

The eyes of every teacher were on him, and Hermione realized that she was no longer the only one in the room who didn't know what to expect.

"That condition is that you, Hermione, are willing to assume the post that Severus is vacating, and that you, Severus, are willing to train Miss Granger in the requirements of that job."

No one spoke.

Dumbledore, looking slightly amused, admitted, "I suppose those are two conditions, rather than one. But I am sure you will forgive my imprecision."

The silence in the room continued, and Hermione realized that many of the portraits on the wall had stopped feigning sleep, and were fixing their eyes on Dumbledore. She didn't know what to say. An offer to teach at Hogwarts, for someone as young as she was... well it was obvious how high of an honor that was. To stay at Hogwarts, to continue learning, to make Potions class something that students wouldn't _fear_... this opportunity was something Hermione hadn't even considered hoping for. But Potions had never been her favorite subject—the only reason she had done so well was to get back at Snape. Snape. No, there was no way Hermione could look at a summer of private tutoring from Snape that would make it seem like anything less than the torture it would assuredly be. And from the dark cloud that had once again covered Snape's face, he wasn't too excited about the prospect either. Hermione looked up at Dumbledore, trying to find the right words to refuse his offer.

But Dumbledore interruped her thoughts. "I would like both of you to take some time to think this proposition over. I am sure that Miss Granger has many other opportunities available to her, and I expect that Professor Snape, as much interest as he has in Defense Against the Dark Arts, might find a separation from his Potions classes to be more than that other subject is worth. I will therefore ask the two of you to reconvene with me tomorrow at this same hour—perhaps a smaller audience than is here today—at which time we shall discuss this plan more fully and you will be able to give me your answers."

Snape nodded curtly, and Hermione felt herself nodding as well. Taking their cue from the Headmaster, the rest of the teachers began to file out of the room, many of them smiling encouraginly at Hermione. Snape left the room last, his cloak swirling through the doorway, and Hermione turned vaguely around her, wondering how she would leave. As if in answer, Dumbledore reached out his hand for the parchment that was still clutched in Hermione's hand, lay it on the desk, and muttered "Portus" as he tapped it with his wand.

"This will take you back to the Burrow, Hermione," said Dumbledore warmly. "And it will bring you back here at 11 o'clock tomorrow morning. I know you will give this offer sufficient thought. Congratulations again."

As she touched her letter and felt the familiar lurch of the portkey, Hermione's last vision was of Dumbledore smiling down at her.


	3. A Decision

disclaimer: JKR owns these characters. I'm borrowing their likenesses as close as i can get them as of the end of book 5.

* * *

Chapter 3: A Decision

(Mixed-Up Confusion)

* * *

_Well, there's too many people__  
And they're all too hard to please_

_ Well, my hat's in my hand_  
_ Babe, I'm walkin' down the line_

_ Well, my head's full of questions_  
_ My temp'rature's risin' fast_

_ Well, I'm lookin' for some answers_  
_ But I don't know who to ask_

_- Bob Dylan _

"You're going to WHAT?"

"He's letting Snape WHAT?"

"Oooo, Hermione, this is fantastic!"

Ron, Harry, and Ginny had each reacted differently, and each predictably, to Hermione's summary of her meeting with Dumbledore. Hermione had sat a moment after the portkey dropped her back in her room to prepare herself for the expected onslaught: Ron's mingled shock at the idea of her becoming Professor Granger, and disgust at the prospect of another of them suffering private lessons with Snape; Harry's automatic fury at hearing that Snape was getting something he wanted; and Ginny's not-very-well-disguised realization of all that seventh-year potions class could be with one of her best friends as her teacher.

"I'm not going to do _anything, _not definitely at least, at this point, Ron," began Hermione patiently. "And Harry, as much reason you have to hate Snape - and I'm not even a little bit saying that you're not somewhat justified in that -"

"Somewhat justified? Hermione, Snape goaded Sirius into rushing off to the Ministry! He _ratted out_ my PARENTS to Voldemort! He allowed.. we don't even know how many of our friends he allowed the Death Eaters to murder without any warning! I don't care how 'critical' his inside information was for us that last month or how much 'personal risk' he went through to get it; that man is still evil."

Hermione gave a tiny, desperate sigh. "I'm not disagreeing with you, Harry. But even though he did do all those horrible things, he's still about the third most knowlegeable person on the Dark Arts who's... well, who's still alive."

"Behind who? Me and Dumbledore?" asked Harry, still frowning but now making an attmpt to control the level of his voice.

"Yes, and since Dumbledore's already got a job, and you're starting Auror training in a few weeks now that you've got the scores to clear it, he's the next best option!" inputted Ginny. "Though oh, it _would _be grand if you put off the Auror stuff for a while and came back to school, It'd be like the D.A. again, only we'd write essays for you to mark, and you'd make lesson plans and get to discipline your students and give punishments and all that. My year is full of troublemakers... Professor Marplethorpe had to keep me after class near once a week last term for jinxing Smith whenever his back was turned."

"Don't be stupid, Ginny," scoffed Ron. "Harry and I just got free of essays and detentions and punishments. He doesn't want to go back to deal with all that rubbish, do you... Harry?"

"What?" Harry turned to look at Ron, shaking his head a little as if to dislodge a large bug or small bird that had landed on it.

Hermione rolled her eyes in the direction of the boys and aimed her conversation towards Ginny. "Ginny, you know it would be a conflict of interest to have you in my class. _If_ I even took the job," she added, rather lamely.

"Not in potions!" countered Ginny. "Either the potion's right or it isn't; you can't play favorites like you could in Defense, or History of Magic, or classes that have a lot of tests and essays!"

Ron snorted and Harry took a breath that Hermione was sure would be expelled along with some choice words about just how well Snape had succeeded in playing favorites as Potions Master, but before he could start speaking, Ginny fell into peals of delighted laughter, and Harry choked on his words as he saw an ugly little garden gnome scurrying past the window, a handsome Firebolt in hand.

"He's got my broom!" Harry shouted, incensed, as Ginny followed him to the backyard, giggling at what looked to be the start of a really amusing show. Ron narrowed his eyes at Hermione.

"Harry's Firebolt is kept locked in the broom shed..." he said warily. "One would have thought that the gnomes would have started stealing brooms a long time ago if they were capable of digging under those foundations, or," he moved closer to the window, "picking the lock and leaving the door swinging wide open, as seems to be the case this time." His eyes were now so narrowed that Hermione doubted he could actually see her replacing her wand in the back of her jeans, but she was proven wrong when he lunged at her, closing one hand around her wand wrist, the other arm gripping her waist.

"Tell me what you've done," Ron demanded, "or else I'll..."

"You'll what? Hug me to death?"

"Oh no, hugging's a matter for misdemeanors like turning my pants pink or bewitching my shoes to waltz when you bloody well know that no Weasley man dances in his living room to the wireless. This level of... of... witchery," he faltered a bit, and covered by lowering his face threateningly towards Hermione's. She licked the tip of his nose.

"Goh, ech, girls! Are. Disgusting!" said Ron, letting Hermione's wrist go to wipe his nose, and then crying out in surprise. Somehow, his moment of distraction had given Hermione the leverage to push him back into an armchair and straddle his lap, lowering her face mock-threateningly down on his.

"What level of... witchery... is this?" she asked, smiling a bit at Ron's thwarted but still far from upset expression. He thought a moment as he extricated his arms from the chair's cusions and explored Hermione's back for the best grip.

"Wicked," he decided, and pulled her down to him.

As much as she was enjoying the novelty of a kiss peppered with laughing rather than tears, after a while Hermione pulled her head away from Ron's, and swiveled around so that she was sideways in Ron's lap, with her legs dangling over the chair's arm.

Ron cocked his head at her, and she kissed him once more, briefly, before starting to speak.

"Look, Ron, apart from the whole Snape thing, what do you think about Dumbledore's offer?"

"Apart from the Snape thing, there's not really anything left, Hermione," he chuckled. The lightheartedness of the kiss seemed to have colored his mood a bit, because he was reacting to this with much more humour than Hermione had expected. But then he'd never had quite the level of hatered towards Snape that Harry had. Or that she herself had devleloped during sixth and seventh years, for that matter. It wasn't that Ron had liked Snape - far from it - but between Harry's deep-seated loathing and Hermione's furious indignance, Ron had done what no one, least of all Ron himself, would have believed he could do, and become something of a voice of reason. Though still a long way from being a Snape cheerleader, he had probably saved Snape's life in that final battle. It hadn't been anything glorious, or actually anything conscious, just a few gasped words reminding Harry that he needed to hurry, to catch up to Voldemort, instead of running after the man he hated second most in the world.

"He was different, Ron. When I saw him this morning, I mean. He looked almost... almost not furious."

Ron laughed. "That was probably his delighted face, Hermione. I expect old habits die hard - he had to spend who knows how many years pretending to hate half the world, and actually hating the other half. Maybe now he's back to being the cheery fellow he was before he turned Death Eater and double agent."

"Still, I don't think he was strictly happy to give up his job, especially knowing I would get it. But it wouldn't be like Harry's Occlumency lessons, being trained by him. It won't be fun," she laughed sharply, "but it could be standable."

"Ah, standable. That just happens to be the exact description of my future job in the Department of Magical Transport."

"Oh, Ron. It'll be boring at first, I expect, as long as you're someone's assistant, but then who knows what could open up. And I hear that Transport has the best intra-Ministry Quidditch squadron there is!"

"It's not a 'squadron,' Hermione, it's a 'team,' or possibly a 'squad.' But yeah, I reckon it'll be fine. So, do you think you'll actually... do you think you might..."

"Take the job? I rather think I will, Ron. I know Harry won't take it too well, but he's got to understand that I fit in best where there's learning and lessons and -"

"And piles of books to read?" Harry stood in the doorway, Firebolt in hand. Outside, Ginny could be seen spinning a potato-like something above her head.

"Harry, I know you don't like this -"

"No, I don't. But I can see how you could. And I suppose... well, now that most of the dark wizards are dead, or in Azkaban -"

"Thanks to you!" put in Ron.

"Thanks to _us,_" corrected Ginny, who had appeared behind Harry with streaks of mud on her face and slightly wild hair.

"Er, yeah, thanks to us, there's not really as much of a need for defense as there is for potion-making, so I guess it's as well that someone decent teach potions."

Hermione looked hard at Harry. She knew he was right, but she could also feel how hard it was for him to say it. She smiled, and made her decision. "I'm going to take the job. I'm going to give Hogwarts' students a good potions master for a change." She paused, and drew herself up to her full, if not impressive, height before continuing.

"And I'm going to give Snape just the hell he deserves this summer."


	4. A Mistake

disclaimer: Jo deserves all the credit for these brilliant characters. I'm just happy to play with them.

A/N: This story is AU after Order of the Phoenix, but I think I am going to keep some story elements from Half-Blood Prince that don't contradict guesses I made in earlier chapters. Book 6 was a lovely wealth of potions information and more story on Snape, so hopefully I'll be able to work some of that in without it being weird that I'm leaving out the stuff that doesn't fit in (ahem.. Dumbledore's death and the whole plot arc that lead to Snape doing it, for example). I love the whole TotallyEvil!Snape from Book 6, though I have some doubts about whether he's truly all dark, but that character direction is something for another story. Like... the real Book 7.

* * *

Chapter 4: A Mistake

(Subterranean Homesick Blues)

* * *

_Johnny's in the basement  
Mixing up the medicine  
...  
Better stay away from those  
That carry around a fire hose  
_

_ Keep a clean nose  
Watch the plain clothes  
You don't need a weather man  
To know which way the wind blows_

_-Bob Dylan _

With a_ fwump,_ Hermione fell back on the bed and blinked several times at the ceiling. What had she said to Ron about her potions lessons? That they would be "standable" and she would "give Snape hell?" She laughed bitterly and barely managed to choke back a sob. The only _standing _had been done by her, and lasted her entire day of lessons, and that was only the first on a list of reasons why her first day back at Hogwarts had been hell. Not for Snape - clearly he had enjoyed himself immensely. Hermione couldn't remember ever having seen Snape look happier. She also couldn't remember when she'd wanted to hex him more.

The day had started at 7am, four hours after Hermione had placed the last book on the shelf of her new teacher's quarters. She'd spent the entire day before scouring the Burrow for her clothes and books and only by late evening was she packed enough to justify a quick floo home to explain her new job to her parents. They were more excited than any of the wizards she'd told the news to; but then, they'd always been nothing but supportive about her magic abilities and activities. That, and they had no idea what kind of man the old Potions Master had been. The kind of man, thought Hermione grimly, who would demand an early morning start on the first day of a six-week course despite - or specifically because of - his pupil's near-midnight arrival at the castle.

As if the sleep deprivation hadn't been bad enough, the smell that pervaded halfway down the dungeon corridor seemed specifically designed to have the most evil effect on Hermione's empty stomach. A house elf had left a pot of coffee on her study table while she was showering, the unfortunate upshot of which was that Hermione had the word "spew" already on her mind when she entered the potions classroom.

Snape was there already, adding to a line of bottles, vials, and jars on his classroom desk. Hermione placed her cauldron next to his on the desktop and emptied it of a stack of potions books before looking at her new tutor expectantly. He stared silently at her before twisting his mouth into a disconcerting smile.

"Well, _Professor _Granger," he smirked. "I'm not going to bother testing you on anything in those books. No doubt you can recite all of them word for word."

Hermione continued to stare at him with an expression that she hoped was somewhere between blank and defiant. She suspected it was really more along the lines of apprehensive and angry, but then without occlumency she couldn't really hope to hide much from Snape anyway.

"Your parroting may have gotten you safely through the N.E.W.T.," Snape continued, "but as a teacher, if you know nothing more than exactly what is stated in your textbooks, you will be useless to your students. No, to teach potions, you must understand poitions."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest that she _did _understand potions, that she had read plenty on the theory of potion making and successfully created lots of antidotes without relying on printed recipes, but Snape cut her off before she could speak.

"You understand _nothing. _To know is something is entirely different from understanding it. And if I am to get anywhere with you in the next six weeks, and let me say now that I sincerely doubt I will, you'd better drop your 'hurt little girl' attitude right now, and accept that you're nowhere near ready to teach this subject."

Hermione fought fiercely to keep back the tears that were stinging her eyes. If this was what it was going to be like, and she couldn't imagine now how she could have imagined it to be anything less than horrid, then so be it. She set her jaw and divided her attention between listening to the rest of Snape's lecture on the subtlety of teaching the subject of potions and imagining various gruesome accidents that might befall him before the summer ended.

By lunchtime, Hermione had to admit she'd learned a bit about potion theory that she hadn't already read in a book. Snape had made her re-create several simple potions without the aid of books or recipes, and after countless failed attempts (two melted cauldrons, five explosions and one uncontrollable whirpool that had sucked her stirring rod into the potion in question), she had accepted the fact that making mistakes might actually be as educational as memorizing the correct method. She'd actually come across some alternative recipes to the shrinking and size-restoring potions after accidentally doubling the amount of silverwort and simmering it a bit too long, and she probably would have felt proud of herself if she hadn't been so exhausted. Spending more time in front of a cauldron than she'd spent in her bed would have been bad enough, but what made it unbearable was being forced to stay on her feet the entire time. Snape's desk was considerably higher than the students' tables, and Hermione couldn't see into her cauldron while seated on one of the classroom stools. Snape had spent the morning perched comfortably on his chair.

Hermione ate in the Great Hall, alone. She guessed that most of the other teachers were wherever they went on holidays, and she had been informed via a note waiting on her desk the night before that Dumbledore would be away on some sort of business for the next couple of days and that he very much regretted not being on hand to personally congratulate her on the start of her lessons. She had never been the only one in the Great Hall before; it felt strange to eat in the midst of such resounding quiet. She sat at the old Gryffindor table instead of taking her rightful seat at the staff table. She certainly still felt like a student, she thought sadly.

Any breakthroughs Hermione might have thought she'd made that morning were more than dampened during her afternoon lessons. Snape again spent the five hours seated, speaking only to assign her new tasks and to find fault with all of her results. The stench of the potions classroom was still overwhelming even on a full stomach; and if anything, eating had only made Hermione sleepier. She strongly suspected that Snape was choosing potions based on the unpleasantness they would expel. In any case, Hermione was sure that a truly random sampling of brews would not contain nearly so many noxious and fume-emitting recipes.

As six o'clock neared, Hermione's tiredness had begun to take its toll on her brain. Snape had been assigning her harder and harder tasks as the afternoon wore on, and his comments were becoming proportionately more biting. "Well," he drawled finally, "it seems we have reached the peak of your ability. Interesting, I don't believe I've asked you to do anything above third-year level. But perhaps you're just out of practice. We'll start again tomorrow at seven."

Hermione didn't answer him as she swept her wand over the desktop, zooming the bottles all back to their original positions and removing all traces of potion. Collecting her books in her arms, she turned and walked out of the room before he could say anything to push her fully over the edge.

She knew she probably wouldn't have been able to hold down any dinner even if she had felt up to facing the echoing Great Hall again. After replacing her stack of books neatly on the potions section of her bookshelf, Hermione fell back on the bed and took stock of the situation. Lingering leg pain? Check. Burning sensation of anger and defeat in her chest? Check. Remnant odors of egg, ammonia, and various sorts of spawn clinging to her robe? Again, check. Yes, the day had certainly been hell for one of them.

Hermione dragged herself off the bed and began to change out of her stinking robes. "At least now we've solved the mystery of why Snape is single," she thought wryly. "The odds of finding a woman who could stand his awful personality were small enough without adding the criterion of a faulty sense of smell." She caught a glimpse of herself in her bureau mirror, and sighed at the dark circles under her eyes. At least her hair looked a little less bushy than usual. "Maybe the perfect hair conditioner is poisonous fumes," thought Hermione dimly, as she climbed into bed and fell asleep before the sun had even begun to set.

* * *

Another A/N: It occurs to me that having a beta reader would A) help screen dumb mistakes and typos I've been making, and B) possibly encourage me to update more regularly. Email me if you're interested. I'd be more than happy to return the favor, especially since editing is my true calling, while writing's more just a distraction. 


	5. A Victory

Disclaimer: the characters all belong to JKR, and I've taken them as they were somewhere between the end of Order of the Phoenix and the end of Half-Blood Prince, and let them run in a different direction from there.

* * *

Chapter 5: A Victory

(All I Really Want to Do)

* * *

_No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you,  
Frighten you or uptighten you,  
Drag you down or drain you down,  
Chain you down or bring you down.  
All I really want to do  
Is, baby, be friends with you._

_- Bob Dylan _

It was still dark when Hermione woke, abruptly and completely. One thing about going to bed before dinner, she thought ruefully, was that you tended to wake up fully rested, but with no one else to talk to but bats and owls. The idea of owls gave her a guilty start – she had promised to write to Ron after her first day of lessons to let him know how it had gone.

Hermione pulled on her robes and hurried up to the owlery, attempting to crystallize the events of yesterday in some form she could write down. The hallways of the castle were emptier than she had ever seen them, and she realized that Filch must have the summers off. It was still hard to shake the habits of glancing over her shoulder occasionally and quieting her steps when approaching a corner or the outlet of a secret passage.

By the time Hermione reached the owlery she had composed Ron's letter in her head, and it only took her a few moments to write it down and pick out a frenetic pygmy owl that looked like it might get on well with Pig. As she watched the tiny bird fly into the faint stripe of grey at the horizon, Hermione thought over what she had written, hoping it didn't come off as desperate as she felt:

_Dear Ron,_

_I hope this owl didn't wake you – I don't guess that he will have reached you in any sort of record time, but then it IS about nine hours before you're accustomed to waking up. Don't think I got up this early just to study, I just collapsed before dinner last night after spending ten solid hours standing behind a cauldron. Remember when you and Harry thought double potions was bad? Imagine quintuple potions. And imagine being Snape's only student. But I did make some progress, I think – I had some new ideas that I stumbled upon on my own, so maybe Snape's just doing what you and Harry tried for seven years to do: stop me getting my answers out of a book. Before you both start praising him (just kidding, Harry! Please don't send over a howler for that! Also, hello Ginny.), let me point out that the potions he's been assigning me are the foulest-smelling ones – think a hundred times worse than polyjuice – so you might just end up sending me away again when I come visit at the weekend.  
Be good, don't worry about me, and keep me up to date on all the job situations!  
Love,  
Hermione_

By the time the owl had disappeared completely, Hermione knew what she was going to do. She hurried back to her room, and rifled through her trunks as her mind worked furiously. It was just after 4am when Hermione entered the potions classroom. She stood for a moment in the doorway, then nodded in satisfaction and began to get to work. She would have a clear three hours before Snape expected her there. She might even have time to pop round to breakfast, if she worked fast.

* * *

When Severus Snape arrived in his classroom at ten minutes to seven that morning, the first thing he did not see was the array of cauldrons and potions he had set out on his desk the night before. He also failed to smell any of the odors associated with the list of potions he had written out for his second day of lessons. What he did smell seemed to be the same thing that kept him from seeing much of anything else: a faintly glistening haze of pale blue and turquoise droplets. Snape coughed violently as he inhaled some of the fresh-scented fog, and started as a small figure emerged from it. 

"Good morning, Professor Snape," Hermione said brightly. "Evanesco!"

The haze diluted somewhat, so that Snape could see cauldrons scattered across each of the student desktops. Some of them were bubbling merrily, others seemed to be at various stages of cooling, and two at the far corners of the room were still emitting columns of the sparkling fog that had now disappeared from everywhere in the room but where it had settled on Hermione's hair and robes.

"Miss Granger, once you are a professor I of course cannot dictate your uses of school potion ingredients, but while you remain under my tutelage I will have to demand that you refrain from wasting your resources and my time on some... frivolous potion that I can only assume was invented by the type of ... teenage girl who thinks that adorning oneself for a formal dance requires an attempt to blind one's date with variations on the idea of… glitter."

"Professor Snape, I appreciate your concern for proper use of school resources, though I must say that as I concocted the potions in question before you got here and out of my own personal ingredients, my efforts can hardly be a burden to you or the school." Hermione smiled sweetly at the glowering man in front of her and continued. "And I must say I never thought of the cosmetics market when I came up with the recipe, although now you mention it, maybe I should start bottling it to sell to young witches. It does seem to stick quite fiercely to hair and fabric. Here, you've got some on your eyelashes."

Hermione had hardly begun raising her wand toward Snape's face when his hand fastened around her wrist, twisting it down and behind her back. She gasped more in surprise than in pain, and as quickly as he had grabbed her Snape let her arm go and stepped back.

"Never point a wand at a former Death Eater," Snape growled. At the look of shock on her face he turned away suddenly, but his voice was softer when he continued. "I can clean my eyelashes myself. Just as you can remove the beads from your own hair."

Hermione did so silently, and Snape, bent over the reflecting surface of a silver potion, didn't see her eyes go from hurt to hard. When he looked up she was zooming cauldron lids across the room to cover the perfumed potions.

"I'm going to breakfast," Hermione announced.

"Excuse me?"

"I said I'm going to breakfast."

"I was under the impression that I am still the teacher in this classroom, even if it is not for much longer," Snape said very deliberately, "and as long as I am the teacher _I_ will tell _you _when the breaks are."

Hermione stared him straight in the face. "Well _I_ was under the impression that it would take _you _at least twenty minutes to check over the potions I've started earlier today. There are about thirty of them, and about ten of those might be new even to you. The other ones I've just changed a bit from the originals. I think you'll find that, on the whole, they are at least as effective and only about half as foul-smelling as the recipes you taught us."

"If you think it will impress me that you added periwinkle shells or lavender to an array of basic potions in order to make them _smell_ better –" Snape began, but Hermione cut him off.

"I didn't do it to impress you, I did it so that _my_ students won't have to suffer a potions master who smells like a bomb in a barnyard. And I didn't use lavender. I expect you will be impressed by the potions I've managed to improve. I'll admit I made a mistake, though – there's one potion that didn't take my changes well, and I think the fumes may be poisonous now. Hope you figure out which one it is before you breathe it in!" And Hermione turned on her heel and left the room.

* * *

Hermione was trembling slightly as she entered the Great Hall. A steaming plate of food appeared at the Gryffindor table, and she carried it up to the teacher's table and sat down in her new seat, taking stock of her plan's effectiveness up to this point. The actual potions-making part of it had gone better than she could have hoped. She decided that maybe half of her success had been due to the re-kindling of her desire to prove Snape wrong in every way, and the rest was because she could work much better without him intentionally giving her awkward or impossible assignments, or distracting her at crucial junctures. 

She had been prepared for his reaction to her potions, knew he would balk at the idea of her setting her own times to come and go. But she hadn't anticipated the look on his face when she had pointed the wand at him. It had been a stupid thing to do, pointing a wand into the face of a man who had dueled for his life more times in the past decade than he had laughed. She had meant to provoke him with the potions and the sass, not with a reminder of his violent past. Hermione tried and failed to shake from her head the memory of his expression when he had grabbed her. It hadn't been the anger or hatred she had seen so many times when Snape looked at Harry or Malfoy. It had been a fleeting look of fear and betrayal.

Hermione downed her glass of pumpkin juice and steeled herself for the unpleasantness she knew lay before her. She pushed the wand incident to the back of her mind, and marched back toward the potions classroom with a blazing mix of cheer and self confidence.

* * *

"So I see you've decided to come back to class." 

"So I see you're not even halfway through checking my potions."

"Miss Granger, I will accept nothing less than a certain level of respect from those around me, even from newly minted professors who wrongly think they are deserving of special treatment."

"Well perhaps I would respect you more if you had noticed that the potion behind you is about two minutes from eating its way through the cauldron unless some powdered beetle wing is added."

"No, you insolent, self-righteous child, you _will_ show me the respect I deserve. I can't force you to appreciate what I went through for the Order, I can't make you see how much I did for your proud, reckless friend Potter. But if you are even _thinking_ of demanding that I treat you as an equal professor, you had better realize that to disrespect me is to waive your right to any reciprocal esteem."

Hermione stood across the desk from Snape, her arms crossed, refusing to rise to his bait, even if he was a teeny bit right in this case.

"You are never again to challenge my authority in my classroom or my knowledge of the subject I have studied and taught for longer than you have been _alive._ I added the powdered beetle _antennae_ to that potion three minutes before you came waltzing back into my classroom, and I also corrected four mistakes you made on four other potions. And may I also express how flimsy a bluff that bit about the poison fumes was? Nothing in this room is remotely dangerous, other than the uncontrollable jumping that would be inflicted on the drinker of –"

"The improved pepperup potion? You're right, it needs a couple more clockwise stirs, but then it should be fine. I'm glad you noticed, though. I assume the other three mistakes were the extra berba pod in the potion of dreamless sleep, the wrong color of Jabberknoll feather in the short-term memory potion, aaand… hmm, was that powdered _unicorn_ or _bicorn_ horn I put in the polyjuice potion? Sometimes I do have a hard time getting something exactly right when I'm doing it for the first time."

Snape's eyes narrowed, and his voice seemed lower than before. "It seems the mutual respect idea is off the table, then, if you are determined to add _lying _and _blundering attempts to **test **me _to the list of ways you are determined to insult me."

Hermione opened her eyes wide, and cocked her head a little to one side. "Then I was right about the other mistakes?"

"Of course you were right about them, if you only committed them in some childish attempt to trip me up. Rest assured, Miss Granger, that if you insist on taking this attitude you'll get nothing but the same rudeness in return."

"But Professor Snape, I already _have _been using you as a model all this time. I guess I was just under the impression that to be a proper potions teacher, one has to be a rude, horrid git." Hermione knew she was going to far when she said it, and for a moment she stood frozen in fear that Snape would actually hurt her this time. Instead, he leveled a hard gaze at her for several seconds, then turned and swept out of the room.

Hermione collapsed onto a stool and let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Finally she'd gotten some sort of victory, though she quailed a bit at the thought of what it might cost her tomorrow. She surveyed the room, thinking of ways to make the next day even better.


	6. An Agreement

* * *

Chapter 6: An Agreement

* * *

_Go 'way from my window,  
Leave at your own chosen speed.  
I'm not the one you want, babe,  
I'm not the one you need.  
You say you're lookin' for someone  
Never weak but always strong,  
To protect you an' defend you  
Whether you are right or wrong,  
Someone to open each and every door,  
But it ain't me, babe,  
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,  
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe. _

_ -Bob Dylan_

Hermione hesitated with her hand on the door of the potions classroom. It was a half hour before the scheduled start of her lesson, but even through the closed door she could hear the swish of cloak and clink of bottles that meant that Snape was already inside.

"Miss Granger, I believe you may learn more about potions inside my classroom than by hovering outside it."

It was as if he could hear her complete lack of surprise at finding him already here. He had probably been working for hours, brewing up some sort of horrible revenge for her success of the day before. There was no point in avoiding it, though. She pushed the door slowly open, fixing her gaze thoughtfully on a panel at eye level.

"I'm very sorry if my standing outside your door silently was upsetting to you, Professor Snape. I was just deciding whether I wanted to put the sign _on _the door, or _next to _it."

No, there was no point in avoiding him, but there was something to be said for keeping him from taking control of the conversation. Snape very pointedly neglected to ask any sign-related follow-up questions.

"I haven't decided exactly what the sign will say. Maybe: 'Potions Classroom – Welcome, Beloved Students,' or 'Home of the Subtle Science and Exact Art of Potion Making – Please Roll Up Your Sleeves.' "

He still didn't speak, but she almost detected a look of nausea flicker across his face at the first suggestion, and the tiniest of starts at the second.

Hermione crossed the space between them and stared blankly at Snape for a second before moving aside to examine one of the cauldrons. If she had been expecting him to try and read some of her thoughts, she was disappointed.

"This one's doing well." Her own voice echoed against the steely-blue surface of the potion. "Though not as well as I would have expected, unless… you added something, didn't you?"

Snape raised his eyebrows but said nothing, and Hermione worked to swallow her growing annoyance at his silence. She had never seen a memory potion turn that color; she had no idea what he had done to it, but she wasn't about to admit that. She moved on to the next cauldron.

"You changed this one, too…" She scanned the room, realization settling over her. He had added something extra to every potion, or stirred it the wrong direction, or put it over the wrong heat. _Well played, Snape. But this was hardly the worst you could do. _

"Well, I suppose my students will be making mistakes like this all the time. Although you could have made it a _little _more difficult." She held the falsely perky smile on her face as she walked along the line of cauldrons. "Stirred with a glass rod instead of a rosewood spoon; chopped asphodel root instead of powdered; ashwinder eggs left at room temperature too long ignited this one; monkshood instead of moonstone – that's a dangerous substitution; and this shrinking solution just never had a fire turned on under it." Hermione maneuvered around the room, fixing Snape's little 'mistakes' as she enumerated each one.

"Well done, Miss Granger. I see your perfectionism and bossiness may finally prove to be nearly as useful as they are irritating. Tell me, what is wrong with that buffering potion?"

Hermione dipped a tumbler into the icy, dun-colored fluid and drank it in one gulp.

"Nothing is wrong with it, which is fortunate, because I'll need its protection to keep the fumes from that Protean solution from knocking me out while I add the knotgrass. Funny how the only effect knotgrass has, in this case, is to keep the potion from being highly toxic to anyone who breathes near it."

Snape looked almost impressed. "Then what, may I ask, makes you so sure the knotgrass hasn't been added?"

Hermione stared him levelly in the eyes once again, and once again he showed no signs of trying to enter her thoughts.

"Because I'm sure you wouldn't have added it. You think I deserve to be taken down by my pride – quite literally, in this case. You want to punish me for doing things right despite your best efforts to make this class miserable for me, but you're not so angry or so vindictive you want to kill me. And that is why you have concentrated knotgrass paste cooling in that dish over there, to give to me after I collapse, but before my lungs shut down completely."

Snape smiled slightly, moved toward the cauldron of Protean solution, and breathed deeply. His smiled widened at Hermione's gasp.

"You are right to mistrust me, in general." His voice was low, almost a purr. "Although in this case, you are mistaken. I have something of a policy of not poisoning those people who are intelligent enough to suspect that I will."

Hermione debated whether to feel good about the compliment to her intelligence or angry that she hadn't anticipated his moves far enough in advance. She instead went for secret option C.

"Can we stop this?"

"Stop these lessons? And you were such a promising student." His sarcasm was a little unfounded, she thought, considering how many of his tricks she had seen through.

"Stop these petty attempts to trip each other up. Can't you just teach me things like any other professor would, without both of us being entirely wrapped up in attempting not to make a mistake in front of the other?"

"As I recall, you were the first one to set up a room full of tripwires, Miss Granger."

"And as I recall, you were the first one to try and make these lessons so unpleasant that I would give up and leave. Do you not want me to take this job after all? I thought you would at least _attempt _to be decent to the person who was allowing you to take over the position you've wanted since you started teaching at this school."

"Did you spend the last seven years with your eyes and ears closed, or are you simply deluding yourself that my bad temper and misanthropy will disappear now that the Dark Lord has been vanquished?"

Hermione smiled as sarcastically as she could. "Bad temper I can deal with. Misanthropy doesn't bother me – it's just when it's directed only at me that I have a problem with it."

"Then I would recommend that you stop doing things to deserve it, Miss Granger."

"Is that an agreement then? A truce, of sorts."

"It does seem to be."

Trying to stare down Snape might have been the scariest thing Hermione had ever done, and she had stood at Harry's side during that final battle. Part of her realized that neither of them would be able to completely give up challenging the other. All the agreement would do was limit the ways in which they could compete. But maybe that would be enough to get them through the rest of the week.

For a girl who had not once counted down the school days left until a vacation, Hermione was remarkably aware that today marked the halfway point in her first week of lessons. _Only two more days until I can escape to the Burrow. Then only five weeks until I'm in charge of my own classroom. _She couldn't tell if Snape knew what she was thinking. She held his stare until her eyes burned.


	7. A Dream

A/N: If you get halfway through and think this is total drivel, please remind yourself of the chapter title. In everything there is a purpose, I promise.

Also, I went back and added subtitles to each chapter, each of which is the name of a Bob Dylan song, and the applicable lyrics from that song. These things always existed in my mind, but for some reason I never included them in the chapters. And now they're there, and of course all of Bob Dylan's lyrics belong to Bob Dylan.

* * *

Chapter 7: A Dream

(I Want You)

* * *

_The guilty undertaker sighs,  
The lonesome organ grinder cries,  
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.  
The cracked bells and washed-out horns  
Blow into my face with scorn,  
But it's not that way,  
I wasn't born to lose you.  
I want you, I want you,  
I want you so bad,  
Honey, I want you.  
-Bob Dylan_

_

* * *

_

_Dear Ron,_

_It's been going just about the way I expected since the supposed Agreement. No one's pretended to try to poison anyone again, and really today wasn't much different than yesterday, though maybe a bit less stiff and awkward. A very tiny bit. _

_I'm learning loads – it's really quite interesting now I'm going deeper into the theory of potions, and learning how to reverse ill effects and deal with the mistakes students are likely to make. It's a messy process, but I'll definitely be ready for Dennis Creevey (do you remember hearing about how he melted three cauldrons in one day, two or three years ago? Apparently, the rumor was more of an understatement than an exaggeration)._

_I will try to bring you one of those custard pies from the kitchens, although honestly I can't imagine why you could possibly need more food with the way your mum keeps you boys in puddings. Also, I'm not really sure it will still be good to eat when it finally gets to you - I'll not be getting there until pretty late tomorrow night, as Snape is the very essence of someone who doesn't believe in ending early on a Friday. _

_I'll tell you lots more when I see you. I've been working on keeping the potions smell from following me around, but wait till you see my hair. _

_ Much love to all the family, and Harry of course,_

_ - Hermione_

Hermione managed to catch Ron's frenetic owl and tie her letter to his leg.She had been tired every night this week, but tonight was much worse. It seemed that an unexpected effect of her agreement with Snape was that all the time that had previously been spent bickering was now devoted to work. More walking from desk to desk, more potions to keep track of, more messes to clean up.

She crawled into bed without bothering to change into pajamas. After only a moment, the smell of stale potions had begun to bother her, enough to take off her robes and fling them toward the far corner, but not enough to drag herself out of bed to put something else on. She was warm where she was, and besides, she would enjoy the look on Ron's face tomorrow when she told him how she had slept nearly naked the night before.

Nearly naked was the most Ron had seen of her; she still didn't let him have free reign, and he was usually pretty good about respecting her wishes. There was plenty of kissing, and some touching – Hermione was constantly amused by the extent of Ron's fascination with breasts – and recently she had discovered the amazing rush that came from being able to take complete control of Ron's consciousness with the right hand movements and a few well-placed licks.

It wasn't as if Ron had any other points of reference when he told her how good she was at what she did, but Hermione thought he was probably right. This was one skill she couldn't learn from a book, and that had forced her to be creative, wild, wicked. She loved what she could do for Ron. She loved the person she became when she was doing it. But she still wouldn't let him touch her. It didn't feel right.

It might have been different if they hadn't been in the middle of a war, but it had seemed somehow indecent to be focusing on herself while their friends and allies were dying. She couldn't be passive at anything, except at times like this, when her exhaustion weighted her down as she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

She was cheering for Ron. Ron, in orange robes that clashed horribly with his hair. Ron, circling the goal hoops. Ron catching a red ball; Hermione screaming her approval. Ron was flying toward her, and now they were flying together, and now lying on the lawn behind the Burrow. 

"How come you're so beautiful, Hermione?" Ron kept stroking her hair.

"I'm not…" She looked up at him through her lashes.

"No, you're not, but _I _think you are." Ron moved closer to her. "When I gain my power as the new Dark Lord, you'll be the only Mudblood I'll spare." Hermione stared at him.

"That's really not funny, Ron."

"Oh, don't worry. You won't have to be my Queen. I can't sire a new line of wizards with dirty blood. But you can stay in my palace. The half-bloods you produce for me can join my army."

"Ron, stop it! It's not funny."

"You should start watching what you say, or I'll have to get rid of you, beautiful or not."

"Who are you? Are you polyjuiced? Why are you saying these things?" Hermione knew this couldn't be real, but tears started to fall nevertheless. Ron stood above her, looking down in scorn.

"What a shock, she's started to cry. All you ever do now is cry. Careful – you'll dampen your spark, and then nothing worthwhile will be left."

Hermione shook her head in bewilderment. The Burrow seemed to fade away, until she and Ron were alone in a grey mist. She thought she could sense someone walking just outside her circle of vision. Ron took a step toward her.

"Help me!" Her scream dissolved, thin and futile, into the clouds. A shadow appeared, moving from the side. Shades of darkness seemed to swirl in and out of focus, and when Hermione could see again, Ron was gone and another man was standing over her, looking into her face with concern in his eyes.

"Where is he?" she asked, frantically. The other man was pulling her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, holding her awkwardly but gently. She was too caught up in finding out where Ron was to register the identity of her protector.

"He's gone. He can't hurt you."

"He'll find me… he's going to try to take over the wizarding world. He's going to kill someone…" Hermione was too far beyond panickey to realize that what she was saying couldn't be right.

"He won't. It's all right."

She tilted her head back up and found herself looking between two curtains of straight, dark hair into the face of Severus Snape. She hadn't recognized him before; she had never seen this look of caring on his face, this worry in his eyes.

"Do you understand me? Everything will be okay." He cupped his hand around her cheek as he spoke, and Hermione suddenly felt lightheaded. She knew, without knowing how, that Ron was vanquished. She relaxed against the body in front of her.

He was warmer than she would have expected. Leaning into him, she felt a light, thrumming heat that didn't correspond at all with the cold stone dungeons he inhabited.

"I was worried about you," he whispered into her hair. "You should have come to me sooner. I wanted to protect you."

"I was afraid. I always thought you hated me."

He put his hands softly on either side of her head, smiled, and tilted her head so she was looking directly into his eyes. She felt a rush of images in her head: Snape sitting behind his desk, all his attention focused on a fifth year Hermione looking exultant over a shimmering cauldron; Hermione spinning through the crowd at the Yule Ball; Hermione lounging on a couch at Grimmauld Place, a plaid scarf tied over her hair and blackish stains all over her arms and shirt; a defiant Hermione hiding the evidence of a contraband blue flame behind her back in a snowy courtyard. Laced through all the scenes were emotions as easy to interpret as the images: admiration, pride, love.

His smile widened at Hermione's gasp. Snape loved her, Snape wanted only to protect her, Snape had her in his arms and it all felt nothing other than right. Hermione stretched herself up and found his lips with hers.

It was nothing like kissing Ron. It was smooth and even, controlled and devastating. His hands were now around the small of her back, and that might have been the only thing holding her up. She could feel each strong, slender finger pressing against her skin with its own pulse. At some point she realized that she hadn't been breathing properly in several minutes, or was it hours, or nanoseconds?

When he pulled his lips away she thought she might cry from the beauty of it all. She kissed him again, more hungrily this time, and arched her back as he kissed his way up along her jawline and down her neck.

It wasn't until he eased her backwards that the discovered the bed behind them. The grey mist had gone, and in its place was a dim, vaguely purple glow haloing a red velvet four-poster. His mouth was on her ear now, breathing softly against her and speaking in that low, molten rumble that thrilled through her body:

"I had to make you think I hated you. It killed me to do it, but I couldn't have you in my thoughts. His attention couldn't be fixed on you, ever."

She ran her hands over his chest, taut and smooth through his robes. Looked into his eyes, seemed to say: "But now?"

"But now, now I can make it all up to you." Hermione couldn't remember ever having seen Snape look happier. He covered her body with his and began to kiss her again, deeply and desperately. She could feel him against her, hot and hard, and once again she was struck with how different this felt than it did with Ron. With Ron, his arousal was a challenge, an opportunity for her to take care of it in the most fantastic way possible.

But now, feeling the throbbing pressure, Hermione didn't want to take care of it. She wanted to keep feeling it against her – no, she realized as a tremor shot though her body – she wanted to feel it inside her.

He seemed to understand what she needed; at least, he must have been steadily removing their clothing during the last few minutes of urgent kissing, because she was naked now, and he was naked above her. His gaze on her body almost burned, and she arched into it, begging him to touch her. His eyes locked back on hers, and she almost cried out at the touch of his fingertips on her breast. His other hand moved over her stomach and down to the side of her waist. She was mewling now, Snape breathing in a heavy purr that reached her in places his hands hadn't yet found.

She didn't trust herself to speak without screaming, and so pleaded with her eyes for him to take her. He leaned his face closer to hers while slowly spreading her legs and rubbing the smooth tip of his erection against her hot wetness. She ran her hands through the lank silk of his hair and dragged her nails over the scar-ridged length of his back, and pulled him into her.

Snape's black eyes glittered in long-awaited triumph as he thrust inside her. She did scream this time, as he did something with his hand that sent her reeling into new clouds of color. She pushed his shoulders up and rolled him over to sit on top of him, rocking her hips, swiveling around up and down, arching her back and reveling in the growl he gave when she cupped her own breasts and moaned. He swiveled himself back on top of her and thrust into her again and again.

* * *

Hermione woke up gasping for breath. She felt her bare body under the sheets and had a moment of panicked certainty that it had all been real, before remembering that she had gone to bed that way. It had just been a dream. A very strange, very vivid dream, caused entirely by a lack of clothes.

Well, never again. Sleeping naked might be a good story to tell Ron to rile him up, but if it also sent her dreams of an insidious Ron and amorous Snape, she would have to do without it. Clearly, she was just hard up for some physical contact. But Snape? Hermione shifted uncomfortably, trying to shake off the warm and golden feeling left by the dream.

Snape was a teacher – now, her colleague. She couldn't feel tingly about him. And Snape was as old as Harry's parents, though probably about twenty years younger than her own father. But still. She couldn't have dreams in which riding him made her whole. Because Snape was, and always would be, Snape.

He had said that much to her two days ago. Snape was good for arguing with and spurring her on to greater things in order to spite him. Snape was good for scaring unruly first-years into order. Snape was good for revealing how overwhelming a single kiss could be.

No, not that last thing. Snape was good for all those things except the last one.

Hermione turned her thoughts to the other part of the dream, and tried to laugh at herself for the ridiculousness of the Evil Ron her mind had created. She smiled ruefully at the idea that she might just have to take up Occlumency to remove any possibility of Ron catching a glimpse of this dream – of his own role in it, but especially Snape's role.

Oh. Oh no. Ron finding out that Hermione had dream-snogged Snape would be disastrous, but _Snape_ finding it out would be apocalyptic. She had to find a way to close her mind, and she had to find it fast.


End file.
